


This is Going to Hurt (but not as much as losing you)

by gremlins-came-and-got-me (Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark)



Series: Holidays with the Stilinski-Hales [9]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Discussions of Versatility, M/M, Semi-Resolved Conflict, emotional angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-13 21:14:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16479869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark/pseuds/gremlins-came-and-got-me
Summary: Derek and Stiles have plans for Halloween. Things go awry.





	This is Going to Hurt (but not as much as losing you)

**Author's Note:**

> The final part of this series! I'll probably drop in time to time to update things or add tidbits or maybe whole stories but for now, consider this series complete.
> 
> The formatting is a bit weird. I apologize. I'll fix it as soon as I can.

“No,” Derek said, shaking his head for good measure. Stiles grinned, twirling, his cloak flowing around him, swishing as the material rubbed against him.

“Why not?” he asked.

Derek sighed. “Because you look ridiculous,” he said fondly. “You can’t go dressed as the grandmother from Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf.”

“I can if you go as Little Red.” Stiles winked suggestively, licking his lips as he eyed Derek with a hunger usually reserved for the bedroom or days off.

“There will be trick or treaters,” Derek reminded him weakly.

“Not for another three hours,” Stiles said. “Are you going to take that long?”

Derek shook his head, hands going to his shirt to tug it up over his head. Stiles quirked his mouth, using a falsetto voice to say, “Little Red, what big muscles you have.”

Derek blushed hotly, but his embarrassment didn’t stop him from mumbling, “The better to carry you with, my dear.”

“And what big hands you have.”

“The better to touch you with.”

Stiles giggled, and Derek blew out a sigh of relief. “Can we not do this right now?” he begged. “I’d like to at least pretend that marriage hasn’t made us any more obscene than we were before.”

“Hey,” Stiles said, spreading his hands, “it’s not my fault that reminding you I’m not working on my thesis now makes you all hot and bothered.”

Derek rolled his eyes but he couldn’t deny that it had been wonderful not having to share his husband with his monstrosity of a paper. “It doesn’t mean I always want to find a new surface that we have to figure out how to sanitize,” he pointed out.”

“Oh don’t deny that you enjoy those forays as much as I do.” Stiles looked him up and down, reading Derek’s blush. “Possibly more,” he added. “Fine. You don’t want to go as a fairy tale this year. What do you want to go as?”

“I don’t know, a werewolf?”

“Cliché and boring,” Stiles said. “Try again.”

“Derek and Stiles?”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at him. “You as Derek?”

Derek shook his head.

“Me as Derek?”

He could see the wheels in Stiles’ head turning. “Me as Derek. Do you want to switch positions?”

Derek nodded. “I’d like to at least try it. If you don’t mind?”

“We’ve been together for how long, Derek? Why am I just now hearing about this?”

Derek shrugged. He wasn’t sure why he’d never brought up the fact that he might like to switch their positions. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy being fucked into the mattress (or whatever other surface they just happened to be on), but sometimes he wanted to make Stiles feel the way that

Stiles made him feel. Maybe he hadn’t ever brought it up because Stiles had never brought it up either.

Derek didn’t know how Stiles would like bottoming. From his expression right now, a little fear, a little apprehensive, Derek would guess that Stiles wasn’t into the idea at all.

“Oh don’t give me that,” Stiles said sharply. “And put your shirt back on. We’re not having sex.”

Meekly, Derek picked up his t-shirt, tugging it on, uncaring that it was inside out and backward. He settled on the couch, hands between his knees. Stiles sighed loudly as he sat next to him.

“Look,” Stiles began, “you know me. You know how I get when the routine is thrown off. It’s not that I’ll never want to switch positions, but you’ve got to give me time to process it.” Stiles sighed again, digging his fingers into his eyes. Once upon a time, back when he and Derek were still figuring each other out, Derek had asked him, “How do you want it?” and Stiles had replied, “You on your back,” and they’d never really changed from that.

“I’m okay with you never wanting to…switch positions,” Derek said. “Really. I am. I just thought, maybe you’d like to feel what I feel sometimes.”

“Thoughtful.” Stiles shook his head. “Well, this is a mess, isn’t it?” He tugged at the nightgown he was wearing under his cloak. “I think we’ll just…I’ve got to go.” He stood up, tearing off the cloak and the dress. Underneath both he had on a green t-shirt Derek had bought him a few years

ago and slacks. Stiles mumbled something under his breath and then the front door slammed behind him.

Derek sat still for a few minutes, but Stiles’ vehicle rumbled to life and pulled away. It felt like he was taking Derek’s heart with him.

There was little sense to staying on the couch and moping, but Derek found he couldn’t motivate himself enough to move. Instead, he stared at the wall and waited.

Three hours later, he roused himself enough to hand out candy when the trick or treaters stopped by.

When the flow trickled off and he still had half a bowl left, Stiles was still gone.

Derek resigned himself to two things. One: he wouldn’t see his husband again until at least tomorrow. And two: he was never going to mention switching in the bedroom ever again.

The first tear surprised him, but the seventeen others before he lost count didn’t. Derek sat on the floor in front of the door and cried, knuckling at his eyes until they hurt.

“What’s going on here?” Stiles said, not unkindly. Derek still startled, looking up at him warily.

He hadn’t heard the Jeep return, nor had he noticed the door opening. He scrubbed at his eyes, waiting for the mockery he knew in his heart wouldn’t come.

He wasn’t disappointed when Stiles knelt next to him, tugging his hands down so that he could examine his face. He didn’t say anything at all before standing up and pulling Derek to his feet.

“What are you doing here?” Derek asked when the silence weighed a little too heavy on his shoulders.

“What do you mean?” Stiles’ tone was bland, carefully blank. “This is my home too, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Derek said, “but I thought you weren’t coming back tonight. You missed the trick or treaters.”

“I meant to,” Stiles said, a guilty look flashing across his face. “I was at my dad’s.” He settled onto the couch, and Derek sat with him. “I needed to hear it from him, I guess.” He heaved a sigh, and Derek steeled himself.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles said, and Derek blinked in surprise. He was not expecting an apology. In fact, he’d been fully expecting to have to apologize to Stiles. Stiles sighed again. “I’m sorry that we never had that conversation before now, and I really don’t know how we got so far in our lives that we never even considered it.”

“To be fair,” Derek mumbled, “I do really like the way things are. I just wanted you to experience it too.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, “that’s the thing: I don’t. Maybe not ever. You know I love sex with you, love the things we do, the time we spend together. I just don’t think I can ever bottom.”

“And that’s fine,” Derek said. “I don’t need you to bottom for me. I’m happy with what we do. It’s fulfilling.”

“But I’m being selfish!” Stiles burst out.

“Who told you that?”

“My dad, who else?”

“Your dad is wrong.” Derek jumped to his feet, digging out his phone.

“What are you doing?” Stiles demanded.

Derek shrugged. “Calling your dad to tell him that he’s wrong.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Why not?” Derek punched in John’s number and stepped out of Stiles’ reach.

“Because that’s my dad. You can’t just tell him that he’s giving bad advice.”

“But he is,” Derek said. He couldn’t explain the hurt he felt that Stiles had gone to his dad instead of staying to talk to him, but he could understand why Stiles did what he did. “What works for him and his relationships doesn’t work for us.”

“My dad’s not in a relationship,” Stiles scoffed.

“Exactly why his advice is even more wrong for us.”

“He’s clearheaded!”

“He’s jaded!”

“He thinks I’m being selfish and I am!”

John answered before Derek could think of a rebuttal, and he marched to the kitchen, Stiles trailing him.

“Did you tell my husband that he’s being selfish by not bottoming for me?” Derek asked, demanded really, but he wasn’t going to call it that…yet.

“Hello to you too, Derek,” John said instead.

“No, no pleasantries until you tell me exactly what you told Stiles when he was there this afternoon.”

“Well,” John drawled, and Derek could imagine him sneaking a beer out of the fridge, knew he probably hadn’t had his after dinner beer with Stiles there. “I’m pretty sure that’s an invasion of Stiles’ privacy right there.”

“Save it,” Derek growled. “Did you or did you not tell him that he was being selfish in our relationship?”

John set something down with a hollow clunk. “I may have implied it,” he said, finally, “but I never outright told him anything of the sort.”

“You know Stiles,” Derek said. “Implying is as good as saying it.”

“True,” John agreed. “Do you feel fulfilled in your relationship as it stands?”

“I wouldn’t have married him if I didn’t.”

“What’s he saying?” Stiles asked. He’d grabbed an apple out of the bowl of fruit Derek kept for visitors, squeezing it until his knuckles turned white.

“Aw, crap, kid,” John said on the line, and Derek focused on the background noise of John draining his beer down the sink. “Look. Tell me what you need me to say to him and I will. I’ll apologize too.”

Derek nodded sharply. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said and hung up.

Stiles let the apple drop to the counter. Derek swept it into the bin and washed his hands.

“What did he say?” Stiles asked again, voice meek.

“He admitted to telling you that you were selfish, which you are not. A relationship doesn’t mean that you give more of yourself than you can.” Derek sighed. He had a headache from crying and he wasn’t quite ready for this part of the conversation.

Instead, he asked, “Hold me?” and Stiles nodded fiercely.

They settled again on the couch, and Derek leaned his head down to rest on Stiles’ shoulder. They sat in silence for nearly half an hour before Stiles spoke.

“It’s almost midnight.”

Derek hummed.

“Can we pretend today never happened? Once it’s a new day?”

“No,” Derek answered. “As much as that would probably be preferable to both of us right now, we’ll need to talk to each other.” He turned his head enough to press a kiss to Stiles’ jaw. “But tonight we can just sit together. And later, we can just go to sleep. Maybe we’ll have that conversation tomorrow or maybe next week, but we will have it.”

He let his head rest again, and Stiles’ hand came up to rub against his back.

“I am sorry though,” Stiles whispered into his hair. “For leaving you like that, making you cry. If you want me to leave again, I can. I’d understand it.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” Derek said. “I only cried because I thought you were leaving for good. Or at least the night. I’m sorry too.”

“That’s a start, right? That we’ve both apologized?”

“It is. It’s a good start too. We’ll talk more tomorrow and decide how much more we’re going to talk, but I have one condition.”

“What is it?”

“Please don’t leave without promising to come back. Even if you do decide to leave for good, please tell me you’ll be back to get your stuff.”

It was Stiles’ turn to press a kiss to Derek’s chin. “I promise that I won’t ever leave without letting you know that I will be back.”

“Thank you.” Derek waited for another few minutes and then whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Stiles replied. “I’ll always love you.”

“I know. I love you always too.”

Even though his stomach was unsettled, and his heart still felt broken, Derek realized that he and Stiles had weathered this squall. There were still repercussions out there, but he was certain they’d get through them just fine. As long as they talked to each other instead of letting it go unsaid for so long.

Life wasn’t meant to be perfect, but it was meant to be shared, and Derek was glad he’d found his partner.

Even though he knew he’d wake up with a crick in his neck and a twinge in his back, he didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay here, curled into Stiles’ side, holding his hand, exchanging kisses of love, until he fell asleep.

So he did.

~ The End ~

**Author's Note:**

> I have to go through and read all the parts of this series to see if this story fits in. I swear Stiles and Derek have had this conversation before, but I couldn't find it on short notice. I apologize if I'm contradicting my own canon here.
> 
> Also, this is un-Beta Read. I will edit more thoroughly when I get a new computer.
> 
> Thank you to all who read this story. It is greatly appreciated.


End file.
